Chancellor Rachel Reeves used her scene-setting speech this month to put protecting the NHS at the centre of her budget.

RCN general secretary and chief executive, Professor Nicola Ranger, has asked the government to ‘stop the rot' in the NHS workforce.

Prof Ranger makes the call as new RCN research shows that only 18.1% of nurses feel able to provide the level of care they want for patients, while 62.9% feel under too much pressure at work.

The RCN's survey saw the numbers who would recommend nursing as a career fall to its lowest level (30.5%), while satisfaction with their pay band among nursing staff also fell to its lowest level (20.7%) for a decade.

In addition, 39.8% of those surveyed said they are considering or actively planning to quit nursing. Emotional fatigue, financial dissatisfaction, and a lack of recognition are key drivers, with these push factors far outweighing positive motivations such as seeking promotion or looking for a new challenge.

Ahead of the budget, Prof Ranger urges the Chancellor to ‘do what's right by patients' by investing in the nursing workforce to improve staffing levels. She says nursing is the ‘silver bullet' to protecting the NHS and achieving government reforms in England.

In a new RCN report ‘An economic case for investing in the nursing profession', the college lays out the benefits to tackling the workforce crisis and investing in nursing. It highlights the major contribution of the profession to patient care, public health, including driving productivity among the wider population.

The college calls on government to protect patient care by retaining and recruiting more nursing staff by supporting career pathways that value nurses' experience and skills. In the report, the RCN highlights the benefits of nursing pay reform, providing ministers with new and independent research by London Economics, which shows that better pay progression would help improve retention, saving the NHS £223m in staff replacement costs in the first year.

In addition, the college is calling for new investment to boost student nurse numbers, including through a loan forgiveness model for those who commit to working in public services, alongside uplifted, universal maintenance grants.

Prof Ranger, said: ‘The Chancellor has set her sights on protecting the NHS this budget, but to truly do what's right by patients, investment must be focused on driving up staffing levels and stopping the rot in the NHS workforce.

‘Whether a hospital or a clinic, patients are simply not getting the treatment or experience they need and deserve. The demand on the NHS grew faster than its workforce. The longer this is allowed to continue, the longer patients suffer, the longer targets are missed and nursing staff leave the profession feeling broken and undervalued.'

She added: ‘For a ‘protect the NHS' budget to be worthy of the name, the chancellor must look to nursing as the solution and deliver that new investment. That means funding to boost student nurse numbers, a commitment to improve nursing pay but also ensuring social care gets the attention it needs.'